The only difference between analog and digital TV is the way signal is transmitted. The video signal of analog television is transmitted in the same way as the radio signal. Actually, the video signal of analog television is AM, and audio is FM. The main drawback of analog TV is that because of the way signal is transmitted, interference can appear depending on meteorological conditions or geographic location of the TV.
If this is not enough, certain bandwidths are assigned to analog TV channels, and this means the resolution and image quality are restricted. In the United States, the analog TV signal is NTSC. This standard had been adopted after the end of World War II, and it is a good system, but it was not engineered with color TV broadcasting in mind. Color implementation into the NTSC format is a weakness of this standard, and this is why many professionals call the NTSC standard “Never Twice The Same Color”.
Digital TV signal, unlike analog signal, resembles very much the way computers work: there are two kinds of signal, “on” or “off”. The viewer either sees an image, or not. Because of this, gradual loss of signal or interferences are an unknown term in the era of digital TV. It doesn’t make any difference how close or far the transmitter is from the TV, and weather conditions also have no importance.
Unlike analog TV, digital format has been designed to be able to take all the main factors of television signal into consideration: B/W, color and audio can be transmitted as interlaced or progressive signal. This means the signal content has greater integrity and flexibility.
The same bandwidth an analog TV signals requires can host higher quality digital image and there will be even extra space left, which can be used for extra video, audio or texts signals.
Because of this, viewers can have a lot of extra features like surround sound, multiple language audio or text using the same bandwidth the standard analog TV signal requires. Digital television is also able to transmit signal for HDTV’s that become more and more popular these days.
Unlike analog TV, digital technology is also able to broadcast programming in a true wide screen (16×9) format. This means the shape of the picture is very much like a movie screen, so the viewers can see a movie just as the director intended to be seen. Those who watch sports can see more action in one camera shot: it is possible to view the entire length of a football field without having the sensation that it is far away from the camera. The 16×9 format means there will be no more black bars on the top and the bottom of the wide screen image.
The United States made the transition to digital broadcasting on June 12, 2009. This means that all analog TV signals went off on that day. After this date, analog TV sets could be used only with an analog-to-digital converter connected to them. The preparations for transition from the analog to digital took quite some time for the consumers, broadcasters and authorities. The transition was originally planned for 2006, but authorities decided to postpone it because they thought consumers were not ready yet to embrace the new technology.
Edward is an electronics expert who writes plasma reviews. To read more sharp hdtv reviews, visit HDTVReviewLab.com












